Spouse slayings, suicides raise alarm at Fort Bragg

ATLANTA -- The slayings of the wives of four soldiers stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., since June has prompted Army officials to look more closely at the stresses of wartime deployment on families.

All four were killed by their husbands, according to investigators. Three of the soldiers had recently returned from Afghanistan, where they served in elite Special Operations units.

Two of the soldiers died in what appeared to be murder-suicides while the other two are being held in the Cumberland County Jail in Fayetteville, N.C.

"We're going to evaluate everything we do," Col. Jerome Haberek, a Special Operations chaplain, said yesterday during a news conference at the base.

Fort Bragg and Pentagon officials said it was too early to determine how much, if any, the deployments contributed to the killings.

Col. Tad Davis, Fort Bragg garrison commander, said the war in Afghanistan was probably not any more stressful on marriages than any other deployment.

"We've got thousands of soldiers deployed in 30 countries around the world. In many cases, those situations are as stressful as Afghanistan," Davis said.

Maj. Gary Kolb, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, said it would be "a reach" to say that service in Afghanistan was to blame. Two of the soldiers were members of the Army's Special Forces, or Green Berets, and one was a member of the super-secret Delta Force, according to published reports. The fourth was assigned to an engineer battalion at Fort Bragg and was not part of the Special Operations Command.

Fort Bragg is also home to the 82nd Airborne Division, which recently sent about 3,000 soldiers to Afghanistan.

The first killing was June 11, when Fayetteville police say Sgt. 1st Class Rigoberto Nieves shot and killed his wife, Teresa, then turned the gun on himself. Nieves was a member of the 3rd Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg and had returned home on leave to deal with family problems just two days earlier.

The next death occurred June 29, when Master Sgt. William Wright of the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion strangled his wife, Jennifer Gail Wright, according to investigators. Wright had been back from Afghanistan about a month but had moved out of his house and into the barracks at the time of the killing.

Wright was arrested July 19, the same day police say Sgt. 1st Class Brandon Floyd shot and killed his wife, Andrea. Floyd, identified by the Fayetteville Observer as a member of Delta Force, killed Andrea, then killed himself. He had returned from Afghanistan in January. The couple's three children were visiting relatives in Ohio at the time of their parents' deaths.

The other killing occurred July 9 and involved Sgt. Cedric Griffin of the 36th Engineer Battalion, police said. He allegedly stabbed his estranged wife, Marilyn, at least 50 times, then set her home on fire. Her two children managed to escape unharmed.

"It's mind-boggling," said Henry Berry, manager of family-advocacy programs at Fort Bragg. "To be absolutely honest, I was completely caught off guard. We're going to look at these cases to prevent them from happening in the future."

Officials at other bases that recently had large numbers of troops return from Afghanistan said they have not experienced any worrisome surge in domestic abuse or child abuse complaints.

Karin Martinez, a spokeswoman for Fort Drum, home of the 10th Mountain Division, said domestic abuse complaints are "in the normal numbers range."

"For the past year, we have had 5,000 soldiers gone to Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and the Sinai, and there has been a slight increase but only because they were gone and now are all back. There have been no extreme levels of abuse outside the normal numbers," Martinez said.

Army Master Sgt. Kelly Tyler, spokeswoman for Fort Campbell, Ky., and the 101st Airborne Division, said the same is true there. Fort Drum and Fort Campbell have mandatory redeployment training for soldiers, Martinez and Tyler said. Fort Bragg has a similar program that is mandatory for soldiers returning from overseas, although it was not clear if it was mandatory for special operations troops.